Polluting a river means violating its rights.The ruling of an Ecuadorian court is historic

In Ecuador the court held the Quito administration responsible for violating the rights of the Machángara river, polluting it for years.

• The Constitution of Ecuador is the first in the world to recognize inalienable rights to nature.
• Based on it, some activists sued the Quito administration for polluting the Machángara River.
• The judge agreed with them, forcing local authorities to activate a reclamation plan.

The Machangara River it arises from springs in the Andes and along its course, of about thirty kilometres, also crosses the capital ofEcuador, Quito.His condition is very bad.It is so polluted that there is not even the oxygen left for aquatic organisms to survive.But the Machángara River is also the holder of precise rights, enshrined in the Constitution.Polluting it means violating these rights.This is what one has established court of Ecuador, with a sentence that activists describe as "historic".

River pollution Machángara in Ecuador

According to the words of the activists of the Global alliance for the rights of nature, the Machángara river is considered no more and no less as a dump.During its course, it collects tons of waste and takes it with it.But the worst comes when it crosses Quito, a metropolis of over two and a half million inhabitants which rises at 2,850 meters above sea level, at the foot of the Andes.Because the waste water are discharged into its course without any purification treatment, poisoning it.Now its average level of oxygen it is just 2 percent, which jeopardizes the survival of the aquatic organisms that live there.

A historic ruling recognizes the rights of nature

This is where the legal action undertaken by some activist groups on behalf of the river itself begins.Why the Constitution of Ecuador, which came into force in 2008, is revolutionary in this sense.If the charters of other countries indeed recognize the right of human beings to live in a clean and healthy environment, that of Ecuador was the first in the world to recognize inalienable rights at the Pachamama, mother Earth in the local language.Nature, we read, "has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structures, functions and evolutionary processes", as well as the "right to be restored".

Consequentially, the judge ruled that the administration of Quito is responsible for having violated the rights of the river and therefore will have to implement a ad hoc plan to clean it up, a plan made up of concrete and effective measures.The case is not yet closed, because the administration has appealed;but, while awaiting the second level of judgment, he will still have to implement what the court orders.